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SWEET build. I love the small dots on the fretboard, it looks sophisticated / refined. It's a nice size to accent the dark woods.

You mentioned using a coping saw for the MOP. Is it a pearl cutting saw? They are worth it, with pearl cutting blades and some parafin wax to lube the blade. It makes easy work of it.

When I put the studs in it makes me nervous I have the hole too small and the whole body is going to crack in two, so I make sure it's big enough to be pressed in with force but not have to be hammered.

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SWEET build. I love the small dots on the fretboard, it looks sophisticated / refined. It's a nice size to accent the dark woods.

You mentioned using a coping saw for the MOP. Is it a pearl cutting saw? They are worth it, with pearl cutting blades and some parafin wax to lube the blade. It makes easy work of it.

When I put the studs in it makes me nervous I have the hole too small and the whole body is going to crack in two, so I make sure it's big enough to be pressed in with force but not have to be hammered.

Thanks, yeah I'm pleased with the small dots, I did't really want to inlay dots but I get lost without something to mark the face of the fretboard, especially at the dusty end. Another plus for 2mm dots is that they're half the price of 6mm dots

This was literally my first go at cutting MOP so I had no idea what to expect, I did some of the cutting with a coping saw and some of the cutting with my band saw, and did the rest with little jewellers files. I'll look at pearl blades for next time (I didn't know that was a thing).

The inner diameter of the bridge wells is 11mm and the outer diameter - the lines that grip the wood (I don't know the correct term) are 11.25 so there is not that much pressure required although simply pushing them in with fingers is not enough. If it's a tunomatic bridge then it can be a looser fit but a 1-piece bridge is taking all of the lateral pressure from the strings so needs to be a snug fit - I've come undone here before and needed to plug and redrill.

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Sounds like a snug fit. Yeah, they take a lot of pressure and need to be solid. The lines would be called knurling I think? Usually it refers to a more diamond pattern, but I think it still applies here.

There is probably less expensive, but it will change everything. Get PLENTY of blades as they break easily. I'm not sure which grades I used, but when in doubt the middle one should work. You can probably search jewelers saw and get something similar.

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Neck is all glued on and I've got a good joint. I did have to glue in a .25mm veneer down one side. I learnt a lesson here. When I routed the pocket, I had a tight fit, too tight in fact, so I used a scraper to fettle the pocket so I had a snug but not not over tight fit. But that was when I was working out in the cold. When I brought the parts inside, the neck pocket shrunk (became wider), which allowed a tiny bit of lateral play in the pocket. I expect, if I'd left it be instead of scraping at it, it would have been fine, but after sticking the veneer in, everything is fine and id doesn't appear to have affected the centre line - I guess by the time the neck is pressed in, that veneer becomes paper thin.

I got to work on my bridge wells last night. These wraparound bridges are a bit more work than tunomatics because the studs sit back from the saddles, needed to measure that offset and drill accordingly, with the PRS adjustable stoptail, the studs sit 5mm behind.

I'm working to a fairly shallow break angle for this type of bridge, turned out just under 2º which means my bridge will need to sit flush with the body for the strings to bottom out on the fretboard and give me a bit of adjustment. So I've had to make a recess for the bass of the studs. The bass of the studs is 13mm in diameter and 1.5mm thick, so I started off by drilling a 13mm bit to 1.5mm depth, then I switch to 11mm bit to drill deep enough so the bridge well and the bass of the stud would be level with the top. Then after sorting out the earth wire I started tapping them in, then realised it was 23:30 and the baby was asleep So that will be a job for tonight (but a bit earlier). I'm wishing now that I didn't give my dad his drill press back, drilling these holes is easy with a hand drill, but using a drill press to push the wells in is a lot quieter than banging them in with a brass hammer.

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This weekend, although it's not yet finished and I've got a bit of work to do on it, including a truss rod cover, I need to brace the back plate as it's only 3mm thick and held in with magents and seal the top and finish. I wired it up and took it to the studio for it's maiden shred. Totally in love with it, sustains forever, the HFS in the bridge is brutal but it works really will with the big vintage sound from the 57/08 in the neck. I'm going to try and go for a chrome/brass combo to compliment the bridge, I need to find some brass washers for the machine heads, brass nuts for the mini toggles and brass pickup screws, these are gold and don't really work.

I'm working on testers for the finish at the moment, I'll probably give it a couple of weeks before I strip it down and finish, I'd like to get to know her better first

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The one I built with a ziricote top, was pretty bright, with rather low output strat pups. Are you getting any of this in that one?

SR

It is quite bright but I put that down to the pups to be honest, I've got a HFS in the mk2 and I haven't really noticed a difference, you've got me thinking that I need to play the two side by side though.

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Nice work dude What finish did you use? Doesn't look like it's finished. I know ScottR mentioned a downside to using oil on Ziricote earlier in your thread, but worked okay on one I did a while back using Tru-Oil...

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This weekend, although it's not yet finished and I've got a bit of work to do on it, including a truss rod cover, I need to brace the back plate as it's only 3mm thick and held in with magents and seal the top and finish. I wired it up and took it to the studio for it's maiden shred. Totally in love with it, sustains forever, the HFS in the bridge is brutal but it works really will with the big vintage sound from the 57/08 in the neck. I'm going to try and go for a chrome/brass combo to compliment the bridge, I need to find some brass washers for the machine heads, brass nuts for the mini toggles and brass pickup screws, these are gold and don't really work.

I'm working on testers for the finish at the moment, I'll probably give it a couple of weeks before I strip it down and finish, I'd like to get to know her better first

very nicely done! might seem like an odd comment but it matches well with that case!

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very nicely done! might seem like an odd comment but it matches well with that case!

hehe, it does indeed match the case very well. The case comes with PRS Artist pack/private stock guitars. But my Paul's guitar has been relegated to a wall stand as I don't have anything else that fits this currently.

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Nice work dude What finish did you use? Doesn't look like it's finished. I know ScottR mentioned a downside to using oil on Ziricote earlier in your thread, but worked okay on one I did a while back using Tru-Oil...

Thanks dude, that one you've pictured above looks lovely, is that based on a suhr modern?

You're right, it is currently unfinished. I'm playing with testers on offcuts at the moment.

The top one is bare for comparison, the bottom one has a cellulose sanding sealer coat, knocked back with 320, then 2 coats of wipe-on poly knocked back with 0000 wool. I'm pretty happy with the results but left it for a while to make sure there are no adherence issues given that the sealer product and the poly are different. I did try a coat of Crimson finish oil on another tester, but it went jet black just like @ScottR said it would.
It's looking like I'm going to stick with the poly.

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Thanks dude, that one you've pictured above looks lovely, is that based on a suhr modern?

You're right, it is currently unfinished. I'm playing with testers on offcuts at the moment.

The top one is bare for comparison, the bottom one has a cellulose sanding sealer coat, knocked back with 320, then 2 coats of wipe-on poly knocked back with 0000 wool. I'm pretty happy with the results but left it for a while to make sure there are no adherence issues given that the sealer product and the poly are different. I did try a coat of Crimson finish oil on another tester, but it went jet black just like @ScottR said it would.
It's looking like I'm going to stick with the poly.

Hey,

That's one of my DCs, not based on anything else

Not sure what Ben's formula is for the Crimson Finishing Oil but the results you're getting from the sanding sealer/wipe-on Poly look good.

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Not sure what Ben's formula is for the Crimson Finishing Oil but the results you're getting from the sanding sealer/wipe-on Poly look good.

Thanks, I'm happy with it and will likely go with that option - waiting for a warmer spell so I can do the finish as I just work in my garage and cold/moisture is a concern! Can't bring it in given the fumes, the poly is not too bad but the sanding sealer is strong stuff!

Ben always said on videos I saw that it's his take on tru oil, but it can't be that similar chemically, crimson finishing oil would never finish on ziricote like you have managed to get above with tru oil.

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Couple of bits on this one. Finally got round to making a truss rod cover, it’s already got a few coats of poly as I cut it out of my tester

I’m planning to swap out the chrome washers on the tuners for brass as with the rest of the hardware too.

i also swapped out the plastic speed knobs for some ebony lampshade knobs, in an ideal world I’d have ziricote knobs but I can’t find any online.

Can you see the dark patch? I’m assuming that is the oil from my fingers getting into the bare wood and darkening it. So I obviously need to get on and get this one finished, through it will need a fair bit of sanding. Hoping to get on with finishing this one once the V is finished. But still really enjoying playing it.

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So the V is finished and you know I'm not one to be sitting on my hands, especially as the Mrs took the little one out for brunch on Sunday so I had a few hours. I recarved the neck - it was 21 and 16/32th mm D carve, now it's 20mm. Then I got it stripped down and I sanded out all the marks It gained from me gigging it over the last few months. Going for another poly finish on the body and headstock and Danish oil on the neck. After doing my testers I decided not to bother with sanding sealer, I know this will require more finish due to the pours on Ziricote, but the sealer resulted in a darker finish which I'm not after.

An issue I'm faced with is the lack of availability of the finish I'm using (Minwax wipe-on poly), I've just about got enough to finish this guitar, but availability is so limited at the moment that Amazon.co.uk are charging £90 a tin, meaning it's just not an option. I'm thinking about trying their polycrylic for the next build but not sure of the pros and cons, other than that I won't be able to use the oil based sealer I've got in abundance.

Anyway, I'll be applying many thinned down coats of poly over the next week then finishing the neck.

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Lots of coats over the last few days. Managed to get a coat on before work, one straight after then one just before cocoa. Also managed to get the cavities painted between coats and I've done some wet sanding between coats at 600, 1200 and 2000. I'm now applying poly with 50/50 mix of mineral spirits. Hoping to be getting to my lat couple of coats as I'm dangerously low on poly. One this is for sure though, finishing a natural top is A LOT less stressful than a stained top

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Having a nightmare, what I thought was a done deal was a long way from it. I had some ghost lines that were bugging me, so I was level sanding to get rid of them which was just showing up more that I clearly missed. Then I ended up with a large patch that had significantly less finish than the rest. So I ended up sanding the whole top back with 320 to start again. I clearly didn’t do a good enough job of level sanding the first coat of poly. So we are starting again